I feel like finally getting into total war. Where should I start? Which one is you guy's favorite total war?
I feel like finally getting into total war. Where should I start? Which one is you guy's favorite total war?
I feel like finally getting into total war. Where should I start? Which one is you guy's favorite total war?
Total War Warhammer is pretty much the way to go, it's the ultimate evolution of the franchise. the fantasy offers so much flavor and variety.
If you want some of the historical total wars, limit yourself to:
Rome Total War (classic, not too sure about the remake). beware that the classic version has many, many problems with newer hardware and you're most likely going to have to trouble shoot.
Medieval 2 (timeless classic, very good game, lots of good mods)
Napoleon (generally fun)
Shogun 2 (seems decent)
Not too sure about Rome 2 and Attila but supposedly they're good. Not sure about TW3K either and how it compares to KT's Rt3K strategy games. The smaller total war saga games seem mostly shit (troy, thrones of Brittania, etc).
games to avoid:
Empire. avoid like the plague. terrible AI, bugs, bad perf even on new hardware, game is just borked top to bottom.
the ancient total wars (shogun and medieval)
pretty bad take
games started going downhill after shogun 2. rome 2 introduced new engine and half the original devs were gone by then.
I've heard rome 2 was a shitshow on launch but is one of the better ones now that it's fixed. How true would you say that is?
first of all, you're malding (balding + mad)
second of all, the games took a nose dive after Med 2, recovered with Shogun, and have been on an uphill and downhill ever since. Also, Empire was the one where a new engine was introduced.
I really like the enlightenment era as a theme. So I should just go for napoleon over empire then?
Yes, Napoleon is a huge improvement on Empire, but it still has its baggage. For one, the AI is brain dead (still is in the modern games), but at least it isn't Empire's AI which was so borked that most battles were impromptu comedies of watching the AI doing really stupid shit.
>For one, the AI is brain dead (still is in the modern games),
Which games have generally good AI? It doesn't matter to me right now as I'll be a noob that probably wont notice how bad it is but I'd eventually like to be challenged a little at least.
I've heard that. I've heard tons of how great Medieval 2 mods are before so I'll eventually look into it but yeah I'll keep it vanilla for now.
I think Shogun 2, Attila and Three Kingdoms have an AI that mostly feels functional. Well, Warhammer too, but that's on account of the removal of most gameplay elements that it could even plausibly mess up so I'm reluctant to give it credit. For the record, on higher difficulties all of these have AI cheats that are completely bonkers (in Warhammer in particular the AI doesn't even play by the same rules: it's not just +5k extra base income and +100% income modifier and +2 recruit slots and +5 settlement happiness and +10 morale/accuracy in combat sort of thing, but not interacting with mechanics period) and on even ground they're absolutely no match for even slightly competent player. I'm thinking more along the lines that they don't feed in single stacks to be defeated in detail, or get stuck in a clump where they can't fight back, or other such failure modes.
One thing I want to mention is that most of these games have EPIC mods which are far, far more expansive than the original game. I'm talking like 10x more content (unique units, etc.) compared to base game, and the historical accuracy is very high with literally hundreds of pages of background historical info about units/events. For a first run through I'd just play standard game, but keep your eye out for mods like DarthMod for Empire, Stainless Steel for Medieval II, and Europa barbarorum for Rome. Truly massive mods which completely change the game.
My favorite standard game for gunpowder is Fall of the Samurai. It takes place with roughly similar tech to the US Civil War, it's set in the Bosin War in Japan. Rifles, Gatling guns, breach-loading rifled artillery, ironclad ships, all against charging Samurai. It's unbelievably epic and quite good. I'd do that first, or start with Empire or Napoleon, both are very good but the more modern FoTS is much slicker and easier to use.
>historical accuracy
>total war
lol, get real. warscape engine means it's pointless to dabble with accuracy in total war games. there's a few other RTS/RTT video games that are really bothered with getting historical accuracy as right as possible.
I think you either didn't read my comment or you've never seen the mods I'm talking about, because your comment is completely wrong. I stand 100% behind EB and SSII as truly exemplary games in terms of accuracy. You haven't referenced any specific criticisms which I attribute to your ignorance.
Well, omniscient direct control over forces for one. Although of course they may be more decent in other aspects: EB2 for instance is pretty good at avoiding battles of annihilation.
>strategy
That would be tactics. But in games up to and including Shogun 2, and then Attila too, you can for instance defeat even vastly superior forces with morale shock, in Rome 2 or Warhammer realistically the only army-wide rout is when the game adjucates the battle after casualty ratio has become too lopsided. Or, even peasants can defeat real infantry units with advantages of terrain and flanking.
The difference if often characterized by this joke: "In older games you'd kill the general to rout the army, in Warhammer you kill the army to rout the general", and that actually gets to the crux of the problem. Well, there are still tactics! Like kiting the enemy general so you can defeat his army, or shrewdly stopping units from firing because ammunition count is factored in the army strength calculation and shooting enemies would only delay your victory, or tricking an unit of cavalry to chase so you can pick it off (the units might fight at full strength when flanked, but it's still defeat in detail), or exploiting indirect fire being just as effective as direct fire by layering ranged units in rows where they tank for each other, or stacking single entity units that knock down enemies because they keep knocking up enemies thus increasing their overall defensiveness, or even tactics that aren't just exploitation of the inadequacy of game mechanics, like good targeting of spells or focus-firing glass cannon units. But perhaps not the kind of tactics you'd want (for the record, older TW games don't really demonstrate historical tactics either, but at least it feels more... plausible?).
Oh you mean like the actual battle engine, yes of course that's not truly realistic. It's better than most games but not realistic. The more realistic parts are the historical background, names, places, cultures, lifestyles, warrior types, etc. You'd love EB and EB2.
The only time that the strategic level really ends up mattering beyond which way to want to "lol expand territory" would be in Attila, especially when playing as the WRE. You field the largest military by a longshot, but are spread so thinly that each legion is at risk of being defeated in detail by the local barbarians/rebels if you get too far over your skis & aren't careful with your military placement.
>Europa barbarorum
The historical accuracy was amazing, autistic beyond reason however.
You should play both. Empire isn't as bad as that Anon makes out, and the larger scope than Napoopan is pretty neat and can lead to some interesting campaigns across the different theatres.
The best thing to do is to start with games from an era/setting that you're interested in, and then branch out into the others. As much as TW fans like to shitfling at other games in the series, they're similar enough that if you like one then you'll probably like them all to a greater or lesser extent.
>Empire isn't as bad as that Anon makes out
maybe if you haven't played it much (or played it a bit years ago and think you're an authority on it) or you were too young to have been there when it dropped, but Empire is terrible. It heralded something of a dark age for CA.
>Which games have generally good AI
The newest ones. They're still not that great, but they're head and shoulders above most of the old ones. Especially Empire.
>not too sure about the remake
The remake is pretty much what you'd want from it
No issues with newer hardware anymore, a more polished look while staying true to the original version, small but noticable QoL improvements, and thankfully no major changes to the units
The gameplay is actually quite similar between all of them even back to Rome 1 (the first 3d game; Shogun 1 and Medieval 1 are both sprite-based and quite dated at this point, although I truly loved them on release more than any other). So my biggest advice is to pick the historical era that most excites you. This is the fun of Total War games; while you are stuck at work/school you are daydreaming about your grand conquest of the world and planning your next invasion. Tell me which ones you're considering and I'll tell you what I think of them. I've played almost all Total War games.
no american civil war total war...
If you haven't please play Fall of the Samurai. It's set in Japan but uses US Civil War tech. It's an absolute BANGER of a game. God the sounds of your line ripping off a volley of rifle fire, the echoes of the Armstrong guns, my god. It's fricking glorious.
Empire total war
Anything past Shogun 2 or Napoleon is generally considered crap and avoid Empire.
I enjoy Med 1, Attilla, and Thrones of Britannia the most. But the others are also pretty good, and it mostly depends on what time periods you enjoy. That being said, the Warhammer games were kind of a step back for me, and Pharaoh is absolutely awful.
I played so many hours of Med1, I would literally day dream about my HRE campaign all day while I was in school or mowing the lawn kek. I'd run home from the bus and IMMEDIATELY load it up every day.
Yeah, my first in the series was Shogun 1, and I fell in love with it since then. Rome 1 blew my mind when it first came out, I'd spend hours after school just dicking around, I would even make armies of peasants, rename them Tenescowri, and have ten doomstacks bum rush barbarian villages for lols.
Kek. My buddy had Shogun 1 and we'd do huge line battles of matchlocks, so fun. Then ME1 came out and I fell in love. Rome 1 I was also obsessed with. I remember one school break I went home to my parents and played that game for basically an entire two weeks off of school every single day, only stopping to get food or meet up with friends.
>The newest ones. They're still not that great, but they're head and shoulders above most of the old ones. Especially Empire.
We should emphasize here for our new friend that the big AI problems specifically relate to the sieges typically. Open field battles the AI is never really that smart, but you will be challenged as you are outnumbered anyway. The AI is ok for field battles, but in sieges it has real trouble. In early Empire the enemy would like march in the front gate and then just stand there while you shot them... gates and entranceways were glitchy and units get stuck or navigate around forever. The mods tried to help but honestly the biggest thing you should do is simply avoid manual control siege battles. Just get a big stack when attacking and auto-resolve. Fight the battle on the field then roll over the city.
Rome And Medieval 2 feel very different from all the other games, Empire changed the series radically
Do not play Empire, it is absolutely the worst. I'd suggest starting with Shogun 2. Its main weakness is lack of unit variety, but if you haven't played before, it won't be a big deal to you.
The Rise of the Samurai campaign would be even better. The unit roster is very restricted, battles are very short and quickly resolved by maneuvering, so it'd be a good way to get the hang of the series.
I agree with this too, and also should say that Three Kingdoms is fast also. Warhammer series is also very fast. Some of the 'hardcore' mods are super, super slow, battles over an hour regularly.
TW games Rome II and later are about spamming doomstacks of strongest units and going to town. Tactics are less prevalent. You uber units will solo mid tier units even if surrounded and their general is dead.
This applies to Warhammer games as well.
Which ones(mods included) are mostly about using superior strategy and outmaneuvering you enemy would you say?
I don’t do mods much. But for example older games like Medieval 2, tactics and terrain matter more. In Shogun2 Ashigaru units are even way too balanced compared to better quality Samurai.
Not that it’s entirely lost in newer games, but you won’t perform well on tactics alone if you do not upgrade your armies. The worst case scenario are situations when a literal doomstack of a best unit is effective, composition be damned.
But if you play on normal you can larp your favorite army compositions without suffering losses because you didn’t minmax armies.
And almost none of this applies to multiplayer as people microing their units more than makes up for their stats
Broadly speaking none of them is so bad that preference over setting wouldn't count. Even Empire, despite launching in an absolutely disastrous state and remaining really fugging jank to this day (Napoleon fixes a lot of issues but has smaller scope, Fall of the Samurai does gunpowder warfare with way more polish, but people tend not to be so much into Boshin war) has its playerbase: in fact besides Medieval 2 it's the game with the most enduring popularity.
In terms of polish and general functionality and atmosphere and period detail and not being completely broken and that kind of stuff, Medieval 2 and Shogun 2 (and especially its Fall of the Samurai standalone expansion) stand above the rest, followed up by Warhammer and Three Kingdoms. All of them have their share of problems: for instance it's often been pointed out that terrain and flanking in Rome 2 and subsequent games (including 3K and Warhammer that I listed as one of the better ones) is irrelevant to melee combat results (you can test this and that's what testing shows) and that's entirely true. But I could write entire posts of jank present in any other version too, often to the degree entire aspects of the game are invalidated if you're playing "correctly".
play empire skip napoleon
Medieval Total War, go back to where it hit its stride and became a known IP for players.
I've gotten a lot of conflicting answers here but I appreciate all input. I'm currently installing shogun 2 and will start with that. Again thanks for all the info lads.
If our daimyo is to become Shogun - military ruler of all Japan.
>shogun 2
don't. total war is trash. download a ROM for Nobunaga's Ambition: Rise to Power or Iron Triangle and play that. Or play the new ones.
Lots of options, few wrong answers tbh. These games are all kind of the same in the big picture, so it's like people picking their favorite pizza place. Shogun 2 is a great pick. Main campaign is very good for teaching intro concepts (ranged, cav, spears, swords rock/paper/scissors) and then there's Fall of the Samurai for guns/cannons done the best TW has ever done it.
Shogun 2 is one of my favorite in the series. That an the late period of Medieval 2. I just really like historical periods where gunpowder weapons are present, but they haven't completely eclipsed armor and melee weapons yet. The Fall of the Samurai expansion was cool too.
Pro tip: The Spear Wall ability for Yari Ashigaru isn't just an anti-cavalry tactic. It basically turns the Yari Ashigaru unit into a phalanx which can hold its own even against samurai units from the front. If it gets attacked from the sides or the rear obviously it's fricked, but this makes Yari Ashigaru very useful as an "anvil" for hammer-and-anvil tactics, or just pinning enemy melee units in place.
It really feels like yesterday that Medieval 1 came out. It doesn't really feel that old to me.
Unfortunately since most of the AI is dumb, tactics like baiting their generals to suicide are meta.
It’s ridiculous in Napoleon where not rarely the AI will charge line infantry/artillery from the front using their generald and get massacred outright.
My favourites are Rome 1 (original, all you need to do is put a d3d8.dll wrapper in the main folder of the game and it will run flawlessly) and Medieval 2 which I consider to be the best game in the series.
I don't like the newer games because they use a different engine and the mechanics are pants on head moronic, but they are servicable. Avoid Rome 2 and all of the Saga games.
The funny thing is how some people put thousands of hours in Rome II.
I’m a terminal Romelet and couldn’t get into that game. It gets so boring so fast and I can’t explain why.
I have ~350 hours, mostly in Divide Et Imperium. Very interesting mod, the 'supply' system models food supply devastation from warfare and conscription. It's absolutely brutal until you master it. You need to make wars happen decisively or you will suffer horrendous attrition. You need to bring supply trains with you too. I've even lost Sicily despite winning battles because your farms and food system is just fricked. There's no people left to recruit or work and the place collapses.
I heard good things about this mod. But unfortunately Rome II never managed to grab me enough so I’d take the time to ttu modding.
It’s no surprise since so many people love that time period they turned R2 into a good game.
Give it a shot, the TW games are all basically built on the same engine anyway, there's not much difference under the hood. When you have a complete overhaul mod it doesn't matter which version they started with aside from graphical limitations. You can even customize if you want battles to be fast or slow based on how realistic you like it, ranging from like 20 minutes to several hours. The supply system is so frustrating at first but after you get used to it playing games without it feels like playing a toy. "What, I'm just supposed to accept that these 100,000 men get fed and have fresh water magically?? Get real!" If you look at real life wars this type of economic/production devastation is common so it's neat someone modelled it finally.
I understand it doesn't really address issues in how combat works (which I think, contrary to the popular argument, isn't really Warscape thing as much as it's Rome2/3K/TWWH/TOB/Troy thing: combat factors like morale shock and terrain for instance arguably are at their most important in Shogun 2) so if you hate Rome 2 battles then it's unlikely to fix that. Would you say that's accurate or not?
I think a lot of people just wanted the classical period but with 'muh graffixx'. Honestly, the more time has passed the more I've grown to love the old Rome 1 look.
Those early 3d graphics have more charm and personality to them than anything CA has put out since Med2. All it takes is a glance at a screenshot and you know that's Rome 1.
>older TW games don't really demonstrate historical tactics either, but at least it feels more... plausible?
The games were never truly realistic, but this is what sold Rome 1 and Med2 for me forever. They try to give an impression of what it could have been like thanks to the excellent engine they use.
>screenshot
Hahaha thanks for reminding me. I used to get 6000+ kill battles with just elephants, just stomping the shit out of every enemy. The best was defending a siege and letting the enemy fill in the street until it's a packed crowd like Itaewon, then sending the elephants down like snowplows.
>btfo everyone on the battlefield
>have zero navy
MTW2 and its mods are good
start at Medieval 2 or Rome 1. Those are the two best total war games.
I congratulate you on creating this master class of a clusterfrick.
>sail Scottish leader over to Georgia for some reason to provoke Timurids and Golden Horde
For what purpose? Lol.
SCAWTLAN
anyone else think Shogun 2 had the best intros out of any total war?
They were definitely good.
Rome 1 had good intros too, but Med 2 intros kind of sucked.
battles are also great
death/kill count rises very fast, it's a fast massacre
while in Warhammer they stand and bark at each other for 30 minutes
A common trait shared by Medieval 2 which is also liked for its battles. For sure, if you make two dismounted feudal knights and katana samurai duel each other in their respective games then katana samurai combat will be over much quicker. But as a matter of fact that's not the way to play Medieval 2: when you factor in morale shock (so, cavalry basically), fights in Medieval 2 just as much as Shogun 2 tend to be fast and decisive when you e.g. roll up a flank and cause a chain rout.
Empire might be the most historylet filtering game in the series because its battles, both ground and naval, require actual understanding of period appropriate tactics to get the most fun out of. If you don't know why it's called a "ship of the line" and what that means as far as how you would employ them in battle then chances are you thought navel battles were a confusing mess. If 90% of the time spent fighting ground battles is just you watching line infantry exchange volleys until both sides have barely any men left standing then chances are you think the ground battles are boring and take too long.
Play Shogun 2 first, it's the best one
How do I play Rome 1 in windowed mode?
Empire or Napoleon?
whats even the point in these games? sure, the battle AI is shit, but campaign map AI is consistently the worst in strategy gaming. Its so bad that it doesnt even make sense that trade and diplomacy systems are in the games at all
Armchair general
Same as most other games: LARP. In Total War you're just LARPing Caesar/Nobunaga/Napoleon/whomever, as opposed to a super soldier or something else.
There are games with more complex and unpredictable systems, though. Just not any that also attempt an ambitious implementation of battles, which is just infuriating.
At the end of the day no game does "watch your army full of little soldiers run around and fight" as well as these games. This is the digital version of little kids with plastic army guys.
3K is the only one I like. Best UI and the only game with actual diplomacy. Other games are just everyone nonstop declaring war on you and enemies losing full stacks means nothing. I love the settings of other games, but they’re just not very fun, and usually are very limited in your options. TW games try way to hard to railroad you into forced conflicts, which leads to games playing out the same way too much.